“I am going to march my men across,” declared he. “If you will peaceably lower the draw, I’ll agree to proceed no more than thirty rods beyond it. But if you refuse—well, you must accept the consequences.”
Thereupon the draw was lowered; the British had the empty triumph of crossing; but the brass guns were safe, and the incoming militia drew up in line and watched the redcoats depart, their fifes squeaking dismally, their drums beating a hollow tattoo.
When all danger was past, Nat began a search for Ben Cooper. But the swimmers had landed some distance below the bridge; he located a few of them, but Ben was nowhere to be found.
“The boy who first started for the boats was a stranger to us,” the men told Nat. “We never saw him before. But he’s a plucky one, whoever he is.”
All the way back to Boston Nat wondered over this strange incident.
“Why, I had not thought Ben within hundreds of miles of Boston,” he said. “And here he pops up in the midst of a thing like that just passed. However, I suppose he’ll hunt me up before long and give an account of himself.”
But this Ben did not do; weeks passed and Nat still heard nothing of him. At last the latter made up his mind that he had been mistaken.
“It couldn’t have been Ben, or he’d have looked me up,” he reasoned. “It was the excitement of the moment that led me astray; one is apt to imagine all sorts of things at such times.”
However, as has been noted before, he had not much leisure to think over his own affairs. With Revere and the thirty faithful mechanics, who continued to patrol the bleak streets each night, ever watchful and alert, he gave all his waking time to the Committee of Safety. And in pursuance of the change of policy on the part of their commander, the British grew aggressively offensive. Once they tarred and feathered a citizen whom they claimed had tempted a soldier to desert, and drew him about the streets upon a dray guarded by soldiers, their band playing “Yankee Doodle” in derision.
They attended public meetings at the Old South Church and hissed the speakers. On the day in March set aside by the Provincial Congress for fasting and prayer, they pitched tents near to the meeting-houses and the services were constantly interrupted by the sound of drum and fife. The very next day Mr. Hancock’s house was assaulted and damaged.